Chef Jim's Pastry Cream - ToledoNewsNow.com: News, Weather & Sports for Toledo, OH

4T Flour

*Pastry Cream (Vanilla Pudding)

Ingredients:

6 oz Granulated Sugar

½ ea Vanilla bean, split

1 pt Whole milk

6 ea Egg yolks

1 oz Unsalted butter

1. Sift the flour and sugar together.

2. Mix ¼ of the milk with the yolks to make them more liquid.

3. Heat the remaining milk with the vanilla bean in a saucepan until it scalds. You will know when it is scalded when a skin forms on top of the milk. DO NOT LET THE MILK BOIL.

4. Add the dry ingredients to the egg yolk mixture and whisk until smooth.

5. Stir the milk, a small amount at a time, to the yolk mixture to bring the temperature up slowly so the eggs don't scramble.

6. Allow the pastry cream to cook over medium heat (even boil slightly) until there is no more taste of flour. During this time the mixture can become lumpy, so stir enough to prevent this but not enough to cool it off. The mixture will be very thick.

7. Add the butter and stir it in.

8. Remove the pastry cream from the pan and remove the vanilla bean.

9. Spread the cream on parchment on a tray so it will cool. Cover with parchment so it will not form a skin on the surface, and refrigerate.

This pastry cream may be used as is, to fill a cake, as a component for another filling or as the base for a fruit tart.

Method: